Self editing 4 fiction #4 ~ Point of View

Top Typo-busting Tips

Using “Find and Replace” in Word is a useful tool for
identifying common typos and homophones and formatting nits. All writers have their “pet nits” and it
advisable to keep a list of your own so that you can run a check for them
before the final edit. It’s much easier to spot a particular typo by searching
through the document than reading it as a proofreader (the brain has an
auto-correct facility, which is why proofreading is so much more difficult than
one imagines.)

To instigate a nit search in Word, press the F5 key on
your keyboard to get the Find and Replace window up:

Type in the search word and keep pressing the “Find
Next” button until you have searched the whole document. You can also type the
correct spelling into the “Replace” field, which is very useful if you decide
to change a character’s name, for example.

This may seem rather tedious but it's well worth the couple
of hours it takes, particularly if you are unsure of a word spelling. For
example, “baited breath” is wrong “bated breath” is right – so look up any spellings
you are unsure of in a dictionary, then add them to your search.

Below is a common nit/homophone check list – followed by
a couple of tricks for spotting missing periods and uppercase errors in he
said/she said dialogue tags (He said is wrong because the sentence has yet to
end) and also how to fix “Yes Sir.” etc. to “Yes, sir.” (notice the added
address comma as well).

advice adviseaffect
effect

aid aide

alter
altar

an andball *bawl (*cry or shout)

bare
bear

base
bass

bated
baited

begun
began

birth
berth

born
borne (usually born)

brake
break

breath
breathe

breech
breach broach

cant
can't

chose
choose

clamor
clamber (ed) (ing)

compliment
complement (ary) (ed)

conflicting
conflicted

cord
chord

council
counsel

course
coarse

creak
creek

currant
current

decent
descent

de
rigor = de rigeur

desert dessert (it's just deserts, not just desserts)

discreet
discrete (ly)

disinterested
uninterested

dominate
dominant

draft
draught drought

dual
duel

dye die

each
other *one another (*more than two)

elicit illicitelude
allude

exited
excited

fair
fare fear (ed)

flair
flare

forbid
forbade

form
from

forward *foreword (*introduction in a book)

four
for fir fourth forth

hanger
hangar

hoard
horde

hurtled
hurled

if of
or

its
it's

jam
jamb

knight
night

know
known

lay lie
laid

leach
leech

led
lead

lessen
lesson

lets
let's

lightning
lightening

lose
loose

main
man mainly manly

meat meet mete

mined
mind

miner minor

misled
mislead

mother lode (not mother load or motherload)

nit
knit

of off

pail pale (it's beyond the pale)

pair
pear pare

palate pallet

past
passed

peak
peek

pedal
peddle

pour pore poor

principle
principal

profit prophet

queue
cue

quit
quite quiet

rack
wrack (ed-ing) (nearly always rack)

rained
reigned

raise
raze

ran run
rub

retch
wretch

rode road rose rise ride

roll
role

safe-deposit
box - not safety

sang
sung

she he

shear
sheer

sigh
sign

site
sight (and cite)

slight
sleight

spilt
split

stationery
stationary

straight *strait (*narrow water channel or difficulty--usu. pl)

Styrofoam
(insulation block) polystyrene (cup)

suite
suit

team teem

the
they

their
there they're

then
than that

though
thought through tough

to too
two

vain vein vane

*vise
vice (*clamping device - U.S. usage)

wet
whet (it's whet your appetite)

where
were we're

who
whom

who's
whose

wrung
rung rang

your you're

F5 searches: To find and replace hyphens for en dashes: type into
the “Find” field: a space a hyphen and a space and type into the “Replace”
field: a space, then select “en dash” from the “Special” menu and then type in
another space. It is advisable to click through using the “Find Next” button and
replace them as you go through rather than all at once. You can also type in a
space then ^= then another space as can be seen in the picture below.

The same can be done to replace double hyphens, usually
with an em dash: type in two hyphens in the “Find” field and select em dash in
the “Replace” field (or type: ^+).

To find He said She said uppercase errors use the “Match
case” checkbox as in the picture below *but remember to uncheck this box for
other searches*.

Use “Match case” to find uppercase errors of the term “sir”,
which should almost always be in lower case, Type in: Sir – at the same time
check for missing address commas, which are common in short dialogue; e.g. “Yes,
sir.” is correct, not “Yes sir.”

Missing periods at the end of paragraphs are common and hard to spot; in the "Find" field, select "Any Letter" and "Paragraph Mark" from the "Special" menu, or type in ^$^p and search for them using the "Find Next" button.Missing periods and commas at the end of dialogue: We have to make two searches ("Find Next") to identify these. To find them in the middle of paragraphs, type: ^$" and a space character into the "Find" field.To find them at the end of paragraphs type: ^$"^p The former search will also identify quotation-type instances (e.g. John said I was "fussifying" things but I was just being careful) so care should be taken. These two searches will not work if you use single speech marks.Missing spaces after commas and periods:To find missing spaces after periods, type into "Find": ^$.^$ (or Any Letter then a period then Any Letter if using the "Special" menu).To find missing spaces after commas, type into "Find": ^$,^$ (or Any Letter then a comma then Any Letter if using the "Special" menu).Compound number nits are common (e.g. twenty three should read twenty-three) and the way to check for these is to type: twenty and then a space character in the "Find" field; this will make them easy to spot (follow up with thirty thru ninety).Backwards speech marks after dialogue intervention en or em dashes are common because Word requires that the closing speech mark is added *before* the en/em dash is inserted: e.g.:

“Sorry,
James, but–““Sorry, James, but—“

To find these for en dashes, type ^="^p into the "Find" field (or use the "Special" menu to select the en dash and paragraph mark) and for em dashes, type: ^="^pOnce we find and fix the first occurrence in the search (by adding the closing speech mark first, and then backspacing to add the en/em dash) we can copy it (Ctrl and C) and paste it (Ctrl and V) over any following reversed speech marks that occur as we use the "Find Next" button to identify them.For advanced users of Find/Replace there is a trick to do it globally:First, check there are no # characters in the document, if not, type into the "Find" field either the en or em dash characters and a speech mark and a paragraph mark: ^="^p or ^+"^p and replace with: #"^pWe then select the "Replace All" option.The next step is to replace all the # characters we just put in with an en/em dash: put a # character into the "Find" field and an en/em dash into the "Replace" field (^= or ^+)We then select the "Replace All" option.

I hope this article is of use to you, and if you have
any tips of your own please leave them in the Comments box (or any other common
typos you are aware of).

To clean up formatting nits, please see our Eradicate Manuscript Nits article first, which will result in a more accurate search of all of the above, and also our Layout Tips article, which has a free Word
template download that is Kindle/epub friendly.

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FileOptionsProofingAutoCorrect optionsin: AutoFormat & also AutoFormat as you type:

check or uncheck "straight quotes" with "smart quotes" to suit which quotes you want to use, then:

Type a " into both find and replace fields and select replace all

then:

Type a ' into both find and replace fields and select replace all

To find the odd ones, one by one, and replace manually (the replace option does not work) you can use a Word doc I use to block on the straight/curly quote, paste it into the Find field and Find Next to locate them one by one and manually replace them.

If you want this simple doc, drop me a line and I'll send it to you (anyone).